The announcement last week of departures from ACP is part of a broader restructure occurring in magazine and newspaper publishing businesses. Just read about changes at Hearst Corp. and Hachette Filipacchi and News Magazines in the UK. The restructure here in Australia reaches beyond ACP to other publishers and deep into distribution and retail as we all deal with the current economic circumstances and the continued impact of the Internet and disruptive devices like the iPhone and Amazon Kindle on magazines and, to a lesser extent currently, newspapers.While it would be easy for newsagents to take some pleasure from the public pain being experienced by ACP, the reality is that we are all affected. It serves no purpose to take any joy from retrenchments.
Newsagents have an opportunity in this marketplace to strengthen our value to magazine and newspaper publishers. Smart publishers will work more closely with smart newsagents to grow sales. Today’s challenges mean they should be doing this with more care than in the past.